So now we have chapter and verse on Baroness Tonge's account of her departure from her trusteeship of Christian Aid. She was indeed a victim of the vast Israel Lobby conspiracy, sacked because the charity was blackmailed by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Read it all here.
Comment is more or less superfluous, but I do have a couple of questions. If the Board of Deputies wields such immense power, why has it failed to suppress Christian Aid's Israel-bashing campaign altogether? Why do Jews bother writing those letters to their MPs that the Baroness finds so wearisome if they can just pull a string or two and have them removed from office?
PS I wrote in a previous post that the Baroness's attitudes matter because support for them now reaches deep into the mainstream. To be more precise, the mainstream of the liberal elite - and in its own estimation that's all that counts. If you think I exaggerate, read Stephen Pollard's account of a metropolitan dinner party.
Showing posts with label the Lobby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Lobby. Show all posts
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Baroness Tonge and Christian Aid: knifed by the Lobby?
Having described Baroness Tonge as a former trustee of Christian Aid, it's only fair to add that her tenure of the post was brief. Appointed in April 2006, she stepped down at the charity's AGM in November of the same year.
Was she pushed? Of course. But by whom? Not, for sure, by Christian Aid's own mandarins - not, at least, unless someone else was leaning on them. Instead of disowning her appalling views on terrorism they ducked the issue with the breathtakingly disingenuous claim that her remarks were 'outside the remit of a development organisation which deals with issues of poverty and humanitarian relief'. My reaction to this piece of bovine manure is here.
It seems the Baroness may have recently given us a clue to her own views about who did the pushing. Here she is, speaking in a House of Lords debate on 2 July:-
“I am beginning to understand the power of the Israel lobby, active here as well as in the USA, with AIPAC, the Friends of Israel and the Board of Deputies. They take vindictive actions against people who oppose and criticise the lobby, getting them removed from positions that they hold and preventing them from speaking — even on unrelated subjects, in my case. I understand their methods. I have many examples. They make constant accusations of antisemitism, when no such sentiment exists, to silence Israel’s critics.”
(from Engage; the whole speech is in Hansard).
Whether she is talking about her exit from Christian Aid or her earlier enforced exit from the Lib Dem front bench (or both), the issues are the same, so let's for the sake of convenience assume the former.
The phrase "the Israel lobby" has of course acquired its place in "respectable" political discourse thanks to Mearsheimer and Walt's eponymous book. It may have been a shoddy piece of work but it has done its job: like a virus the phrase has entered our collective bloodstream.
A telling insight into the quality of Mearsheimer and Walt's analysis came from their insinuation that the Lobby had "got its grips" (to use the words applied by Baroness Tonge to her own party) into the Church of England. My extended riposte to this claim is here. Clearly, though, it has explanatory force for Baroness Tonge: Church leaders got her kicked out of her Christian Aid trusteeship because they go in fear of the Board of Deputies.
What is the reality here? So far from the Board being an omnipresent, omnipotent lobby with its grips in every institution, it has been savaged by Rabbi Sidney Brichto in the latest issue of the excellent new magazine Standpoint for its timidity in making the case for Israel in an environment where anti-Israel sentiment is ubiquitous.
I surmise that the reasons for Baroness Tonge's exit from her trusteeship were eminently straightforward. Namely that in the upper echelons of the Churches there are to be found decent and reasonable Christians who uphold Israel's right to exist and her citizens' right to life, and that they were not prepared to accept that an apologist for terrorism should hold a post in an official agency of the Churches. My guess is that CA's bosses privately sympathized with the Baroness but were not willing to stick their necks out for her. A public row with Church leaders could easily damage the charity's standing among ordinary churchgoers - and thus its income. That, by the way, is the parameter within which it plays at radicalism. In a way I have more respect for War on Want, which makes no bones about its politics and raises its cash from those who think as it does.
And what role did Jews, inside or outside the Board of Deputies, play? Well, Jews have good reason to be well-informed and concerned about the Baroness's views, and I can well believe there were some who alerted their Christian contacts to her track record and argued that she was not an approriate person to hold such a position. You can call this lobbying by all means, but it is not, repeat not, an instance of The Lobby at work, pulling the strings of those nominally in authority. It is - need I say it - a normal way for human beings to conduct their affairs. It bore fruit because decent and reasonable Christians found themselves in agreement with it - through persuasion, not through intimidation.
There are, I fear, two factors which would make it hard for Baroness Tonge to give this scenario credence. The first is that she appears to be so totally convinced of the rightness of her cause that she cannot conceive of anyone - especially a Gentile - disagreeing with her in good faith. In this she exemplifies the almost cult-like character of the anti-Israel movement. If they will not acknowledge how evil Israel is there must be sinister forces at work.
And with that we arrive at the second factor. My scenario assumes that Jews are ordinary human beings who feel, think and act in the way ordinary human beings feel, think and act and have ordinary human powers. For someone who sees the Board of Deputies as the local branch of the Lobby, and bishops and Lib Dem leaders alike as its abject puppets, that assumption has already ceased to be self-evident. And the reason for devoting a longish post to a person of no huge importance in herself is that these attitudes now reach deep into the mainstream.
Was she pushed? Of course. But by whom? Not, for sure, by Christian Aid's own mandarins - not, at least, unless someone else was leaning on them. Instead of disowning her appalling views on terrorism they ducked the issue with the breathtakingly disingenuous claim that her remarks were 'outside the remit of a development organisation which deals with issues of poverty and humanitarian relief'. My reaction to this piece of bovine manure is here.
It seems the Baroness may have recently given us a clue to her own views about who did the pushing. Here she is, speaking in a House of Lords debate on 2 July:-
“I am beginning to understand the power of the Israel lobby, active here as well as in the USA, with AIPAC, the Friends of Israel and the Board of Deputies. They take vindictive actions against people who oppose and criticise the lobby, getting them removed from positions that they hold and preventing them from speaking — even on unrelated subjects, in my case. I understand their methods. I have many examples. They make constant accusations of antisemitism, when no such sentiment exists, to silence Israel’s critics.”
(from Engage; the whole speech is in Hansard).
Whether she is talking about her exit from Christian Aid or her earlier enforced exit from the Lib Dem front bench (or both), the issues are the same, so let's for the sake of convenience assume the former.
The phrase "the Israel lobby" has of course acquired its place in "respectable" political discourse thanks to Mearsheimer and Walt's eponymous book. It may have been a shoddy piece of work but it has done its job: like a virus the phrase has entered our collective bloodstream.
A telling insight into the quality of Mearsheimer and Walt's analysis came from their insinuation that the Lobby had "got its grips" (to use the words applied by Baroness Tonge to her own party) into the Church of England. My extended riposte to this claim is here. Clearly, though, it has explanatory force for Baroness Tonge: Church leaders got her kicked out of her Christian Aid trusteeship because they go in fear of the Board of Deputies.
What is the reality here? So far from the Board being an omnipresent, omnipotent lobby with its grips in every institution, it has been savaged by Rabbi Sidney Brichto in the latest issue of the excellent new magazine Standpoint for its timidity in making the case for Israel in an environment where anti-Israel sentiment is ubiquitous.
I surmise that the reasons for Baroness Tonge's exit from her trusteeship were eminently straightforward. Namely that in the upper echelons of the Churches there are to be found decent and reasonable Christians who uphold Israel's right to exist and her citizens' right to life, and that they were not prepared to accept that an apologist for terrorism should hold a post in an official agency of the Churches. My guess is that CA's bosses privately sympathized with the Baroness but were not willing to stick their necks out for her. A public row with Church leaders could easily damage the charity's standing among ordinary churchgoers - and thus its income. That, by the way, is the parameter within which it plays at radicalism. In a way I have more respect for War on Want, which makes no bones about its politics and raises its cash from those who think as it does.
And what role did Jews, inside or outside the Board of Deputies, play? Well, Jews have good reason to be well-informed and concerned about the Baroness's views, and I can well believe there were some who alerted their Christian contacts to her track record and argued that she was not an approriate person to hold such a position. You can call this lobbying by all means, but it is not, repeat not, an instance of The Lobby at work, pulling the strings of those nominally in authority. It is - need I say it - a normal way for human beings to conduct their affairs. It bore fruit because decent and reasonable Christians found themselves in agreement with it - through persuasion, not through intimidation.
There are, I fear, two factors which would make it hard for Baroness Tonge to give this scenario credence. The first is that she appears to be so totally convinced of the rightness of her cause that she cannot conceive of anyone - especially a Gentile - disagreeing with her in good faith. In this she exemplifies the almost cult-like character of the anti-Israel movement. If they will not acknowledge how evil Israel is there must be sinister forces at work.
And with that we arrive at the second factor. My scenario assumes that Jews are ordinary human beings who feel, think and act in the way ordinary human beings feel, think and act and have ordinary human powers. For someone who sees the Board of Deputies as the local branch of the Lobby, and bishops and Lib Dem leaders alike as its abject puppets, that assumption has already ceased to be self-evident. And the reason for devoting a longish post to a person of no huge importance in herself is that these attitudes now reach deep into the mainstream.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Mearsheimer and Walt: an Anglican footnote
Coming upon a stack of Mearsheimer and Walts (in English) in Berlin's top bookshop, I wanted to check whether a particular passage in their London Review of Books article had made it into the book. It had, and thanks to it I am able to save myself a lot of time and expense. It seems reasonable to say that if you find you can't trust what a book says about a subject you know something about, you've no reason to trust what it says about anything else. So I have made up my mind about The Israel Lobby. It stinks.
Here is the offending passage from the article; I did not notice any significant alteration in the book:-
'Israel’s advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti-semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would ‘have the most adverse repercussions on . . . Jewish-Christian relations in Britain’, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: ‘There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist – verging on anti-semitic – attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.’ But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.'
So: a church takes a perfectly innocent stand on a human rights issue, and a couple of rabbis make wild accusations of anti-Semitism in a transparent attempt to morally blackmail non-Jews into silence over Israel's crimes. Should we not applaud Mearsheimer and Walt for their courage in exposing this for the racket that it is?
As a member of the Church of England who took a close interest in these events when they happened, the only thing I feel like applauding is the authors' skill in cramming so many half truths and misrepresentations into four sentences. Apologies to readers pushed for time for my inability to produce an equally concise refutation, but I must crave your patience...
Critics of critics of critics
The claim that there is a new anti-Semitism abroad may indeed be made by some people who treat all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic; it is certainly made by a great many people who do nothing of the kind. If you doubt this, spend some time at the Engage website; to represent Engage's position as 'criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite' would be a straightforward lie.
The smear against those sincerely concerned about the new anti-Semitism is followed by the sentence quoting the two rabbis' warnings of anti-Semitism in response to a particular campaign against Israel. The unwary reader is being invited to assume that the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, and Rabbi Tony Bayfield take the 'criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite' line. In both gentlemen's cases this is, once again, totally untrue.1
Who's complaining?
A further assumption to which our unwary reader is implicitly invited: since it was just a couple of rabbis who attacked the Synod resolution, Zionist special pleading must have been the only possible grounds for making such a criticism. Why do the authors not see fit to mention that (among other non-Jewish critical voices) the resolution was also sharply condemned by no less an Anglican than the former Archbishop of Canterbury? Lord Carey said it made him 'ashamed to be an Anglican'. Should we ascribe this omission (which has certainly not been corrected in the book) to sloppy research, or deliberate misrepresentation?
Criticism versus demonization
So why did a disparate coalition of Jewish and non-Jewish voices speak out against the resolution? 'But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy', the authors tell us with affected artlessness, as if that was enough to dispose conclusively of any possibility of anti-Semitism. It wasn't about Jews, it was 'merely' about a state which 'merely' happens to be the only Jewish one in the world.
This is not about analysis or persuasion, but about playing to the gallery - a gallery where 'it isn't anti-Semitic to criticize Israel' is a mantra for keeping minds closed and terminating debate.
And it won't do. It really, really won't. Criticism of Israel can be fair and justified. It can also demonize Israel and in demonizing Israel demonize the Jewish people. It does this when it applies double standards - as General Synod did with a 'protest' which was certainly anything but 'mere'. I distinguish two types of double standard; one might describe them as local and global.
The local double standard: telling one side of the story
Mearsheimer and Walt themselves apply the first category of double standard in exactly the same way that General Synod did. Caterpillar bulldozers were 'used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes'. Well, any particular homes? Any particular Palestinians? Any particular reason? Or just randomly, for the sheer hell of it?
The answer is, of course, that the Israeli government had a policy of demolishing the homes of suicide bombers who had attacked Israel. Call it illegal, call it vindictive, call it counterproductive - fine, so long as you acknowledge that a terrorism which demolishes not just real estate but lives is part of the equation. That simple acknowledgement is too much for Mearsheimer and Walt, just as it was for General Synod.
The global double standard: singling out
It so happens that the demand for divestment from Caterpillar displayed the second category of double standard with a particularly stark clarity. General Synod met in February 2006. During 2005 the government of Zimbabwe had carried out a demolition programme which, according to UN estimates, left some 700,000 people homeless - people whose crime was, essentially, being poor.
As I wrote at the time, Synod failed to show '[a]ny interest in finding out who provided Robert Mugabe with technical backup for a house demolition campaign which dwarfed all the Israelis’ efforts.' Well, I can now answer my own question thanks (ironically, given my views about the magazine's Middle East coverage) to Christian Aid News, which published a photo of a bulldozer demolishing a shack which had been a family's home. The bulldozer was bright yellow, and the maker's logo was somewhat blurred but clearly began with a 'C'.
Has there been a campaign within the Church of England to persuade Caterpillar that it should not sell its products to Zimbabwe? No, there has not - let alone a divestment campaign.2
A historical thought experiment
If it's still not clear what this has to do with anti-Semitism, let me offer an analogy from - surprise, surprise - Germany. Under the 1918-33 Weimar Republic there were a number of financial scandals in which wealthy Jews were implicated. Let's imagine how different newspapers might have covered these stories.
A paper of the radical Left might have used them as illustrations of the rottenness of the capitalist system. So long as it gave equal prominence and similar treatment to scandals where no Jews were involved, it would have had no case to answer if anyone accused it of anti-Semitism.
A Nazi paper, on the other hand, would obviously have highlighted just those scandals involving Jews, and made sure its readers couldn't overlook the fact that they were Jewish. There would be no room for doubt as to what its agenda was.
But what would we make of a paper which consistently highlighted only the scandals involving Jews, but which, if taken to task over this, insisted that it was just a critique of the excesses of capitalism and nothing whatever to do with anti-Semitism? Would we not be forced to see this either a peculiar form of moral blindness or simple bad faith? Would we want to defend the editors indignantly against any suggestion that they were not perfectly good socialists, good liberals or good Christians?
In search of real anti-Semitism
But I'm not sure that it's much use arguing this point with Mearsheimer and Walt. As regards their attitude to anti-Semitism, there's a sentence from the previous paragraph in the article which gives the game away in glorious Technicolor. I certainly won't be the first fisker whose attention this has attracted:-
'No one would deny that there is anti-semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s conduct towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist.'
So there you have it: there are two kinds of anti-Semitism, and one is racist, but the other has been provoked. Any Jew in London, Berlin or Paris who gets beaten up by Muslims infuriated by Israel's conduct towards the Palestinians can take comfort in the knowledge that his/her assailants were not straightforward racists.
If authentic, 'racist' anti-Semitism has to involve a complete absence of provocation, we can pretty much say that it has rarely, if ever, existed. Jews have provoked Gentiles by being responsible for capitalism, communism, anarchism, Germany's defeat in the First World War, the Black Death and the killing of Christ... The list goes on. And now Israel. If only they would behave themselves!
Imagine that Mearsheimer and Walt had suggested that hatred of black people in general, or Arabs, or Muslims, is sometimes 'provoked' and therefore not 'straightforwardly' racist. Can you also imagine them being able to make a triumphal progress round Britain's universities, propounding these views to adoring audiences of left-wing students and academics?
Lobby (UK section) exposed?
Let's come back to the Synod resolution. What is the relevance of this story to Mearsheimer and Walt's central thesis? The Chief Rabbi had a spat with the Church of England over Israel - what's that got to do with the price of fish? It's pretty clear that the authors would like very much to include Britain in the picture they paint of America - a Britain under the thumb of the Lobby, in which would-be critics of Israel are silenced by the wielding of the 'anti-Semitism club' (as some people in Germany see fit to call it). But it's equally clear that to offer the case of the Synod resolution as evidence for this is absurd. For the resolution was indeed easily carried. Those voting for it were evidently not deterred by the fear of accusations of anti-Semitism, and I know of no evidence that any of them has since been cowed by the Chief Rabbi's strictures.
Perhaps we are meant to think that this was a bold, maverick action on the part of General Synod. But that's plainly nonsense, too. For a start, it's just not the C of E's style, and never has been. These days the established church is about as cosy in its relationship with the left-liberal establishment as it used to be with the landed gentry (only the ever-infuriating Evangelicals disturb the harmony).
No, as I hardly need to inform British readers, the vote reflects a media environment, both secular and Christian, in which hostile coverage of Israel is routine and pervasive. You'd be safe in guessing that among the Synod members who voted for the resolution there was a healthy majority of Guardian and Independent readers. Neither paper displays the slightest reluctance to criticize Israel. Most will also have been exposed to Christian Aid's persistent propaganda campaign against Israel. And practically all of them will have been consumers of the not exactly Israel-friendly BBC's news and current affairs programming.
Tony Blair and the logic of the Lobby thesis
My impression, then, is that Mearsheimer and Walt are not particularly well-informed about Britain. That's fair enough - I certainly don't know as much as I could know about the USA. But Britain is nevertheless crucial to their thesis. They need Britain to be, like America, firmly in the grip of the Lobby. For how, otherwise, is the Blair government's decision to join in the invasion of Iraq to be explained? On the principle of Occam's Razor, the explanatory force of the Lobby thesis depends on the assumption that Bush's decision to go to war was so perverse, irrational and immoral that only the malign influence of the Lobby can satisfactorily account for it. And if Blair's choice - irrespective of whether it was right or wrong - was truly his own, then that assumption falls. So he, no less than Bush, must be a pliant creature of the Lobby.
And that, I think, is why the General Synod of the Church of England makes its brief appearance as a heroic resistance movement against the intellectual reign of terror exercised by Jonathan Sacks and Tony Bayfield. Conclusion of my footnote: this book is toxic.
Footnotes to the footnote
1. From the Chief Rabbi's Address to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 21 September 2003:-
'Is criticism of Israel anti-Semitism? No. Are false accusations against Israel anti-Semitism? No. Is Britain an anti-Semitic country? No and no again. This is a good, decent and tolerant country, a society of chessed which we love and to which we have loyally contributed for 350 years.
'But we say to every responsible citizen of Europe - Zakhor, remember. Remember how one thing leads to another. Remember how centuries of prejudice against Jews were captured and turned to evil by evil men for evil ends. Remember that the road to hell begins with a single step. For the love of G-d, or for the love of humanity, stand up and say "No".
'You do not have to support the current or any other Government of Israel in order to protest the demonisation of Zion and the Jewish people. You do not have to take sides in the current conflict in order to be able to say to people, "You are stirring up hatred which is wrong, dangerous and unacceptable."'
Rabbi Tony Bayfield, writing in Comment is Free on 26 June 2007:-
'I am a moderate when it comes to Israel but not, I hope, vacuous. It is an uncomfortable position with traffic coming at me from both sides. I am a Zionist and define Zionism as a non-negotiable commitment to the right of the state of Israel to exist and an equal commitment to the pursuit of peace as the highest value, to democracy and human rights. That exposes me to the rage of Israel's critics on the one side and to the Jewish "realists" and cynics on the other.'
2. The C of E's brand of anti-colonialist anti-racism evidently makes it less reluctant to vilify the Jewish state than to take a stand against a black African despot - even though his victims are also black Africans.
Here is the offending passage from the article; I did not notice any significant alteration in the book:-
'Israel’s advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti-semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would ‘have the most adverse repercussions on . . . Jewish-Christian relations in Britain’, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: ‘There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist – verging on anti-semitic – attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.’ But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.'
So: a church takes a perfectly innocent stand on a human rights issue, and a couple of rabbis make wild accusations of anti-Semitism in a transparent attempt to morally blackmail non-Jews into silence over Israel's crimes. Should we not applaud Mearsheimer and Walt for their courage in exposing this for the racket that it is?
As a member of the Church of England who took a close interest in these events when they happened, the only thing I feel like applauding is the authors' skill in cramming so many half truths and misrepresentations into four sentences. Apologies to readers pushed for time for my inability to produce an equally concise refutation, but I must crave your patience...
Critics of critics of critics
The claim that there is a new anti-Semitism abroad may indeed be made by some people who treat all criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic; it is certainly made by a great many people who do nothing of the kind. If you doubt this, spend some time at the Engage website; to represent Engage's position as 'criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite' would be a straightforward lie.
The smear against those sincerely concerned about the new anti-Semitism is followed by the sentence quoting the two rabbis' warnings of anti-Semitism in response to a particular campaign against Israel. The unwary reader is being invited to assume that the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, and Rabbi Tony Bayfield take the 'criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite' line. In both gentlemen's cases this is, once again, totally untrue.1
Who's complaining?
A further assumption to which our unwary reader is implicitly invited: since it was just a couple of rabbis who attacked the Synod resolution, Zionist special pleading must have been the only possible grounds for making such a criticism. Why do the authors not see fit to mention that (among other non-Jewish critical voices) the resolution was also sharply condemned by no less an Anglican than the former Archbishop of Canterbury? Lord Carey said it made him 'ashamed to be an Anglican'. Should we ascribe this omission (which has certainly not been corrected in the book) to sloppy research, or deliberate misrepresentation?
Criticism versus demonization
So why did a disparate coalition of Jewish and non-Jewish voices speak out against the resolution? 'But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy', the authors tell us with affected artlessness, as if that was enough to dispose conclusively of any possibility of anti-Semitism. It wasn't about Jews, it was 'merely' about a state which 'merely' happens to be the only Jewish one in the world.
This is not about analysis or persuasion, but about playing to the gallery - a gallery where 'it isn't anti-Semitic to criticize Israel' is a mantra for keeping minds closed and terminating debate.
And it won't do. It really, really won't. Criticism of Israel can be fair and justified. It can also demonize Israel and in demonizing Israel demonize the Jewish people. It does this when it applies double standards - as General Synod did with a 'protest' which was certainly anything but 'mere'. I distinguish two types of double standard; one might describe them as local and global.
The local double standard: telling one side of the story
Mearsheimer and Walt themselves apply the first category of double standard in exactly the same way that General Synod did. Caterpillar bulldozers were 'used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes'. Well, any particular homes? Any particular Palestinians? Any particular reason? Or just randomly, for the sheer hell of it?
The answer is, of course, that the Israeli government had a policy of demolishing the homes of suicide bombers who had attacked Israel. Call it illegal, call it vindictive, call it counterproductive - fine, so long as you acknowledge that a terrorism which demolishes not just real estate but lives is part of the equation. That simple acknowledgement is too much for Mearsheimer and Walt, just as it was for General Synod.
The global double standard: singling out
It so happens that the demand for divestment from Caterpillar displayed the second category of double standard with a particularly stark clarity. General Synod met in February 2006. During 2005 the government of Zimbabwe had carried out a demolition programme which, according to UN estimates, left some 700,000 people homeless - people whose crime was, essentially, being poor.
As I wrote at the time, Synod failed to show '[a]ny interest in finding out who provided Robert Mugabe with technical backup for a house demolition campaign which dwarfed all the Israelis’ efforts.' Well, I can now answer my own question thanks (ironically, given my views about the magazine's Middle East coverage) to Christian Aid News, which published a photo of a bulldozer demolishing a shack which had been a family's home. The bulldozer was bright yellow, and the maker's logo was somewhat blurred but clearly began with a 'C'.
Has there been a campaign within the Church of England to persuade Caterpillar that it should not sell its products to Zimbabwe? No, there has not - let alone a divestment campaign.2
A historical thought experiment
If it's still not clear what this has to do with anti-Semitism, let me offer an analogy from - surprise, surprise - Germany. Under the 1918-33 Weimar Republic there were a number of financial scandals in which wealthy Jews were implicated. Let's imagine how different newspapers might have covered these stories.
A paper of the radical Left might have used them as illustrations of the rottenness of the capitalist system. So long as it gave equal prominence and similar treatment to scandals where no Jews were involved, it would have had no case to answer if anyone accused it of anti-Semitism.
A Nazi paper, on the other hand, would obviously have highlighted just those scandals involving Jews, and made sure its readers couldn't overlook the fact that they were Jewish. There would be no room for doubt as to what its agenda was.
But what would we make of a paper which consistently highlighted only the scandals involving Jews, but which, if taken to task over this, insisted that it was just a critique of the excesses of capitalism and nothing whatever to do with anti-Semitism? Would we not be forced to see this either a peculiar form of moral blindness or simple bad faith? Would we want to defend the editors indignantly against any suggestion that they were not perfectly good socialists, good liberals or good Christians?
In search of real anti-Semitism
But I'm not sure that it's much use arguing this point with Mearsheimer and Walt. As regards their attitude to anti-Semitism, there's a sentence from the previous paragraph in the article which gives the game away in glorious Technicolor. I certainly won't be the first fisker whose attention this has attracted:-
'No one would deny that there is anti-semitism among European Muslims, some of it provoked by Israel’s conduct towards the Palestinians and some of it straightforwardly racist.'
So there you have it: there are two kinds of anti-Semitism, and one is racist, but the other has been provoked. Any Jew in London, Berlin or Paris who gets beaten up by Muslims infuriated by Israel's conduct towards the Palestinians can take comfort in the knowledge that his/her assailants were not straightforward racists.
If authentic, 'racist' anti-Semitism has to involve a complete absence of provocation, we can pretty much say that it has rarely, if ever, existed. Jews have provoked Gentiles by being responsible for capitalism, communism, anarchism, Germany's defeat in the First World War, the Black Death and the killing of Christ... The list goes on. And now Israel. If only they would behave themselves!
Imagine that Mearsheimer and Walt had suggested that hatred of black people in general, or Arabs, or Muslims, is sometimes 'provoked' and therefore not 'straightforwardly' racist. Can you also imagine them being able to make a triumphal progress round Britain's universities, propounding these views to adoring audiences of left-wing students and academics?
Lobby (UK section) exposed?
Let's come back to the Synod resolution. What is the relevance of this story to Mearsheimer and Walt's central thesis? The Chief Rabbi had a spat with the Church of England over Israel - what's that got to do with the price of fish? It's pretty clear that the authors would like very much to include Britain in the picture they paint of America - a Britain under the thumb of the Lobby, in which would-be critics of Israel are silenced by the wielding of the 'anti-Semitism club' (as some people in Germany see fit to call it). But it's equally clear that to offer the case of the Synod resolution as evidence for this is absurd. For the resolution was indeed easily carried. Those voting for it were evidently not deterred by the fear of accusations of anti-Semitism, and I know of no evidence that any of them has since been cowed by the Chief Rabbi's strictures.
Perhaps we are meant to think that this was a bold, maverick action on the part of General Synod. But that's plainly nonsense, too. For a start, it's just not the C of E's style, and never has been. These days the established church is about as cosy in its relationship with the left-liberal establishment as it used to be with the landed gentry (only the ever-infuriating Evangelicals disturb the harmony).
No, as I hardly need to inform British readers, the vote reflects a media environment, both secular and Christian, in which hostile coverage of Israel is routine and pervasive. You'd be safe in guessing that among the Synod members who voted for the resolution there was a healthy majority of Guardian and Independent readers. Neither paper displays the slightest reluctance to criticize Israel. Most will also have been exposed to Christian Aid's persistent propaganda campaign against Israel. And practically all of them will have been consumers of the not exactly Israel-friendly BBC's news and current affairs programming.
Tony Blair and the logic of the Lobby thesis
My impression, then, is that Mearsheimer and Walt are not particularly well-informed about Britain. That's fair enough - I certainly don't know as much as I could know about the USA. But Britain is nevertheless crucial to their thesis. They need Britain to be, like America, firmly in the grip of the Lobby. For how, otherwise, is the Blair government's decision to join in the invasion of Iraq to be explained? On the principle of Occam's Razor, the explanatory force of the Lobby thesis depends on the assumption that Bush's decision to go to war was so perverse, irrational and immoral that only the malign influence of the Lobby can satisfactorily account for it. And if Blair's choice - irrespective of whether it was right or wrong - was truly his own, then that assumption falls. So he, no less than Bush, must be a pliant creature of the Lobby.
And that, I think, is why the General Synod of the Church of England makes its brief appearance as a heroic resistance movement against the intellectual reign of terror exercised by Jonathan Sacks and Tony Bayfield. Conclusion of my footnote: this book is toxic.
Footnotes to the footnote
1. From the Chief Rabbi's Address to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, 21 September 2003:-
'Is criticism of Israel anti-Semitism? No. Are false accusations against Israel anti-Semitism? No. Is Britain an anti-Semitic country? No and no again. This is a good, decent and tolerant country, a society of chessed which we love and to which we have loyally contributed for 350 years.
'But we say to every responsible citizen of Europe - Zakhor, remember. Remember how one thing leads to another. Remember how centuries of prejudice against Jews were captured and turned to evil by evil men for evil ends. Remember that the road to hell begins with a single step. For the love of G-d, or for the love of humanity, stand up and say "No".
'You do not have to support the current or any other Government of Israel in order to protest the demonisation of Zion and the Jewish people. You do not have to take sides in the current conflict in order to be able to say to people, "You are stirring up hatred which is wrong, dangerous and unacceptable."'
Rabbi Tony Bayfield, writing in Comment is Free on 26 June 2007:-
'I am a moderate when it comes to Israel but not, I hope, vacuous. It is an uncomfortable position with traffic coming at me from both sides. I am a Zionist and define Zionism as a non-negotiable commitment to the right of the state of Israel to exist and an equal commitment to the pursuit of peace as the highest value, to democracy and human rights. That exposes me to the rage of Israel's critics on the one side and to the Jewish "realists" and cynics on the other.'
2. The C of E's brand of anti-colonialist anti-racism evidently makes it less reluctant to vilify the Jewish state than to take a stand against a black African despot - even though his victims are also black Africans.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Reasons to be frightened
'If the Professor was merely prejudiced then his suggestion that Jews monopolise American foreign policy could be lightly dismissed as another manifestation of his hatred. I wouldn't be, as I said I was, frightened.
'Instead I am faced with a lucid, liberal intellectual lending his support, apparently through careful sifting of the evidence (but without any justification I can see), to a contention supported by Nazi Jew haters. And that, that I do find frightening.'
- Daniel Finkelstein on Richard Dawkins - read the rest here. Myself, I'm somewhat less impressed by the Dawk's lucidity and liberalism. However, taking him as one manifestation of a much broader trend among the lucid and liberal in their own estimation, the quote above makes an excellent summary of the raison d'être for this blog. It was frightening when I started two-and-a-bit years ago, and little has changed for the better since.
'Instead I am faced with a lucid, liberal intellectual lending his support, apparently through careful sifting of the evidence (but without any justification I can see), to a contention supported by Nazi Jew haters. And that, that I do find frightening.'
- Daniel Finkelstein on Richard Dawkins - read the rest here. Myself, I'm somewhat less impressed by the Dawk's lucidity and liberalism. However, taking him as one manifestation of a much broader trend among the lucid and liberal in their own estimation, the quote above makes an excellent summary of the raison d'être for this blog. It was frightening when I started two-and-a-bit years ago, and little has changed for the better since.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Dawk v. The Lobby
Well, the Mearsheimer and Walt bandwagon has hit the road, and guess who's leapt on board:-
'When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.'
(via that model of thoughtful and non-triumphalist atheism, Norm)
Yes, our leading purveyor of religiophobic bigotry also has a sideline in racist mythology. What a surprise. The irony is that the Dawk's credibility is founded on the perception that he's a scientist. Which I dare say he was, once upon a time.
'When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told - religious Jews anyway - than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolise American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place.'
(via that model of thoughtful and non-triumphalist atheism, Norm)
Yes, our leading purveyor of religiophobic bigotry also has a sideline in racist mythology. What a surprise. The irony is that the Dawk's credibility is founded on the perception that he's a scientist. Which I dare say he was, once upon a time.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Mearsheimer and Walt: the Shove in the Back Legend
Have no fear, I haven't given up in disgust, it's just that practically all of this month has been taken up with holiday and illness. Evidently staying at home is the healthy option.
So now I'm busy trawling through about 50,000 posts on my favourite blogs. Where to start? Well, an important and frightening place to start is with a couple of posts from Melanie Phillips.
In the first she quotes the wise words of LA Times writer Timothy Rutten reviewing Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby. Rutter in turn quotes New Yorker editor David Remnick, who says that the Iraq fiasco 'has left Americans furious and demanding explanations. Mearsheimer and Walt provide one: the Israel lobby.' Rutter then concludes:-
'In fact, if you accept the analysis put forward in this book, it’s impossible not to conclude that the United States was, in fact, tricked into a disastrous war in Iraq by a domestic Fifth Column and that the ranks of that subversive formation are filled with Jews, their friends and willing dupes.
'Mearsheimer and Walt go to great pains to proclaim their disinterested benevolence toward all and to attach the word ‘realist’ to their argument. The only adjective that comes to this reader’s mind is "sinister."'
Not only sinister, but chillingly familiar. Germany, November1918: after the failure of its last big offensive the army is on the verge of being routed on the Western Front; on the home front despair finds an outlet in a wave of strikes; the Kaiser acknowledges the hopelessness of the situation and abdicates. The power vacuum is filled by politicians of the democratic Left, who form a provisional government, grasp the nettle of suing for peace, and then draft the democratic constitution of the ill-fated Weimar Republic. A weary, humiliated, angry people look for explanations.
Now it so happens that some of the most prominent personalities among these democratic politicians are Jews. As are a significant number of the radical socialists who led the strikes.
Or does it? Could it be that this fact provides the key to what's really been going on? Namely, that the Fatherland's heroic forces were on the verge of a glorious victory, only to have it snatched from them by a fiendishly cunning plan to foment unrest behind the lines, and thus smooth the way to power for a clique of politicians, revolutionary agitators and profiteers, united beneath their superficial differences by their lack of patriotism, their unscrupulousness - and their Jewishness.
So ran the Stab in the Back Legend (Dolchstoßlegende), which began gaining adherents immediately after the events of November 1918. One man may or may not have believed in the legend, but certainly believed it had an indispensible part to play in realizing his own dreams of power. Enjoying comfortable board and lodging at the state's expense (officially a prison cell) after his first attempt at seizing power, he wrote a book setting the Stab in the Back in its wider context of Jewish bestiality. The rest, as they say, is history.
And history has a way of repeating itself. Of course, the details are different. Then, a stab in the back to cheat a nation of its victory. Now, a shove in the back to ensure that a nation fights a war which is not in its interest. And of course Mearsheimer and Walt are not Hitlers.
But the Stab in the Back Legend came in many versions, some relatively 'sophisticated' and not - at least overtly - anti-Semitic. Once the logic of scapegoating is established, however, it tends to be the most consistent and ruthless scapegoaters who reap the rewards.
For the other Melanie Phillips post, see my next.
So now I'm busy trawling through about 50,000 posts on my favourite blogs. Where to start? Well, an important and frightening place to start is with a couple of posts from Melanie Phillips.
In the first she quotes the wise words of LA Times writer Timothy Rutten reviewing Mearsheimer and Walt's The Israel Lobby. Rutter in turn quotes New Yorker editor David Remnick, who says that the Iraq fiasco 'has left Americans furious and demanding explanations. Mearsheimer and Walt provide one: the Israel lobby.' Rutter then concludes:-
'In fact, if you accept the analysis put forward in this book, it’s impossible not to conclude that the United States was, in fact, tricked into a disastrous war in Iraq by a domestic Fifth Column and that the ranks of that subversive formation are filled with Jews, their friends and willing dupes.
'Mearsheimer and Walt go to great pains to proclaim their disinterested benevolence toward all and to attach the word ‘realist’ to their argument. The only adjective that comes to this reader’s mind is "sinister."'
Not only sinister, but chillingly familiar. Germany, November1918: after the failure of its last big offensive the army is on the verge of being routed on the Western Front; on the home front despair finds an outlet in a wave of strikes; the Kaiser acknowledges the hopelessness of the situation and abdicates. The power vacuum is filled by politicians of the democratic Left, who form a provisional government, grasp the nettle of suing for peace, and then draft the democratic constitution of the ill-fated Weimar Republic. A weary, humiliated, angry people look for explanations.
Now it so happens that some of the most prominent personalities among these democratic politicians are Jews. As are a significant number of the radical socialists who led the strikes.
Or does it? Could it be that this fact provides the key to what's really been going on? Namely, that the Fatherland's heroic forces were on the verge of a glorious victory, only to have it snatched from them by a fiendishly cunning plan to foment unrest behind the lines, and thus smooth the way to power for a clique of politicians, revolutionary agitators and profiteers, united beneath their superficial differences by their lack of patriotism, their unscrupulousness - and their Jewishness.
So ran the Stab in the Back Legend (Dolchstoßlegende), which began gaining adherents immediately after the events of November 1918. One man may or may not have believed in the legend, but certainly believed it had an indispensible part to play in realizing his own dreams of power. Enjoying comfortable board and lodging at the state's expense (officially a prison cell) after his first attempt at seizing power, he wrote a book setting the Stab in the Back in its wider context of Jewish bestiality. The rest, as they say, is history.
And history has a way of repeating itself. Of course, the details are different. Then, a stab in the back to cheat a nation of its victory. Now, a shove in the back to ensure that a nation fights a war which is not in its interest. And of course Mearsheimer and Walt are not Hitlers.
But the Stab in the Back Legend came in many versions, some relatively 'sophisticated' and not - at least overtly - anti-Semitic. Once the logic of scapegoating is established, however, it tends to be the most consistent and ruthless scapegoaters who reap the rewards.
For the other Melanie Phillips post, see my next.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Auntie explains
'Since the start of the current violence in Lebanon, the United States' position has remained consistent: it is only sensible to have an Israeli ceasefire when it can be a sustainable one.
'In other words, when Hezbollah has been sufficiently weakened to no longer pose a threat.
'That is a view that has been at odds with many European nations, who have argued for an immediate Israeli ceasefire.
'The reasons for that difference in emphasis are complex but many people point to the power of the Israel lobby in the United States as a key factor.'
- a perfect encapsulation of the BBC mindset (no, I won't use the 'b' word) from a piece by the Nick Miles on Friday.
For a start, it's mildly amusing that this appeared a matter of hours before John Bolton joined the rest of the Security Council in voting for, er, a ceasefire resolution - in a situation where Hezbollah had not exactly ceased to pose a threat.
The last sentence sets the tone for the rest of the article. Note Mr Miles' evasive 'many people point ...', not explicitly associating himself with the many people but not actually distancing himself from them either. It is a fact that a significant subset of the many people go further and point to this as evidence for the authenticity of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, but naturally it is not the impartial Beeb's job to pass judgment on such views.
What I find most revealing is that, having established the difference between American and European attitudes, Mr Miles makes the reflex assumption that what stands in need of an explanation is America's bizarre, irrational and inhuman support for Israel. And the rest of the article then provides that explanation, focussing, surprise, surprise, on (Jewish) ethnic egotism and (evangelical) religious fanaticism.
Some people - perhaps even many people - might be wondering why, when a pro-Western democracy fights back against aggression from a fundamentalist and racist terrorist organization committed to wiping it off the map, so many Europeans react with outrage rather than solidarity. But no explanation is on offer from Mr Miles. Evidently such people are not his, or the Beeb's, kind of many people.
'In other words, when Hezbollah has been sufficiently weakened to no longer pose a threat.
'That is a view that has been at odds with many European nations, who have argued for an immediate Israeli ceasefire.
'The reasons for that difference in emphasis are complex but many people point to the power of the Israel lobby in the United States as a key factor.'
- a perfect encapsulation of the BBC mindset (no, I won't use the 'b' word) from a piece by the Nick Miles on Friday.
For a start, it's mildly amusing that this appeared a matter of hours before John Bolton joined the rest of the Security Council in voting for, er, a ceasefire resolution - in a situation where Hezbollah had not exactly ceased to pose a threat.
The last sentence sets the tone for the rest of the article. Note Mr Miles' evasive 'many people point ...', not explicitly associating himself with the many people but not actually distancing himself from them either. It is a fact that a significant subset of the many people go further and point to this as evidence for the authenticity of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, but naturally it is not the impartial Beeb's job to pass judgment on such views.
What I find most revealing is that, having established the difference between American and European attitudes, Mr Miles makes the reflex assumption that what stands in need of an explanation is America's bizarre, irrational and inhuman support for Israel. And the rest of the article then provides that explanation, focussing, surprise, surprise, on (Jewish) ethnic egotism and (evangelical) religious fanaticism.
Some people - perhaps even many people - might be wondering why, when a pro-Western democracy fights back against aggression from a fundamentalist and racist terrorist organization committed to wiping it off the map, so many Europeans react with outrage rather than solidarity. But no explanation is on offer from Mr Miles. Evidently such people are not his, or the Beeb's, kind of many people.
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Thursday, April 06, 2006
That LRB article again
As a footnote to the last post, thanks to Stephen Pollard for reminding me that the London Review of Books is subsidized by the British taxpayer.
The old conspiracy theorists and the new
From ‘Dangerously Subversive Dad’, via Dumb Jon, a post commenting on a rather remarkable article by British National Party leader Nick Griffin.
I wouldn’t normally link even indirectly to the BNP site, and my purpose in doing so here is in no way to rehabilitate Griffin or his party. The fact that his argument for dropping anti-Semitism is couched in terms of electoral tactics speaks volumes about the political milieu he operates in. There is no change of heart here, only opportunism. What is interesting is Griffin’s acknowledgment that for the BNP’s target constituency anti-Semitism is a non-issue at most, and mostly a positive turn-off. Middle England simply doesn’t have a problem with Jews. Its sense of national identity is infinitely more accommodating to them than to people who like to dress up as stormtroopers in their spare time.
It’s also interesting to note that Griffin is moving in the opposite direction from left/liberal circles. Lately, those theoretically committed to opposing anti-Semitism on principle always seem to be looking the other way when it is happening in practice. When the President of Iran denies the Holocaust. When the Mayor of London uses it as raw material for an insult to throw at a Jewish journalist. When Palestinians elections vote for a movement whose attitude to Jews is informed by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. There are always excuses, always more important things to protest about. We maybe haven’t quite reached the point where the BNP is a more comfortable place to be Jewish than the SWP, but it really does look as if things are moving that way.
And while Griffin signals a retreat from conspiracy theory politics, the left is pushing at the boundaries. A new phase in the process was marked by an article recently published in the London Review of Books. Two American academics argue that the ‘Zionist lobby’ has a stranglehold over US foreign policy which consistently harms the national interest – notably in the case of the invasion of Iraq, which is said to have been prompted by Israeli interests rather than American ones. For all the authors’ disclaimers, it is essentially a conspiracy theory – and a right-wing conspiracy theory at that. Since when has ‘national interest’ – the American national interest, for heaven's sake – been a rallying cry for the left? Why shouldn’t American Jews be concerned about Jews in the rest of the world? Compare the case of Irish Americans: some may be abysmally ignorant about Irish politics, but objections in principle to their taking an active interest in the Northern Ireland question have typically come from the right, not the left. And can we not think of any reasons why international solidarity might be a particularly pressing concern for Jews?
Here’s a sample of the way a conspiracy theory builds its case:-
‘Israel’s advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti-semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would ‘have the most adverse repercussions on . . . Jewish-Christian relations in Britain’, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: ‘There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist – verging on anti-semitic – attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.’ But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.’
This paragraph is a masterpiece of misrepresentation. People who raise specific objections to specific criticisms of Israel become part of a conspiracy to close down all criticism of Israel, even if they are respected spiritual leaders. The fact that the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, strongly endorsed the Rabbis’ concerns is not worthy of a mention. This is meant to be a Jewish conspiracy, you see. And we are apparently being invited (or why else is this British excursus included in the article?) to conclude that The Lobby has Britain as well as America in its grip, making criticism of Israel a difficult and dangerous business, even though the passing of the synod resolution with a hefty majority suggests precisely the opposite.
And another sample:-
'Pro-Israel forces have long been interested in getting the US military more directly involved in the Middle East. But they had limited success during the Cold War, because America acted as an ‘off-shore balancer’ in the region.'
Limited success - so actually, The Lobby doesn't have such a stranglehold over US policy that it can get its way without finding other people who agree with it. But naturally that kind of detail can never be allowed to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.Another revealing point is that The Lobby is said to be essentially no different from purely commercial interest groups – which fits in very nicely with traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes.
So it’s reactionary crap – so much so that it gets a rave review from ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. But no matter: it holds out the promise – evidently an irresistibly seductive one for the LRB - that, if only this thesis can gain a foothold in Washington, it can succeed where other arguments have failed in undermining American support for Israel. The end justifies the means.
For more on the Mearsheimer and Walt article, see the letters page in the subsequent issue of the LRB, sundry posts at Engage, and David Aaronovitch’s Times blog
I wouldn’t normally link even indirectly to the BNP site, and my purpose in doing so here is in no way to rehabilitate Griffin or his party. The fact that his argument for dropping anti-Semitism is couched in terms of electoral tactics speaks volumes about the political milieu he operates in. There is no change of heart here, only opportunism. What is interesting is Griffin’s acknowledgment that for the BNP’s target constituency anti-Semitism is a non-issue at most, and mostly a positive turn-off. Middle England simply doesn’t have a problem with Jews. Its sense of national identity is infinitely more accommodating to them than to people who like to dress up as stormtroopers in their spare time.
It’s also interesting to note that Griffin is moving in the opposite direction from left/liberal circles. Lately, those theoretically committed to opposing anti-Semitism on principle always seem to be looking the other way when it is happening in practice. When the President of Iran denies the Holocaust. When the Mayor of London uses it as raw material for an insult to throw at a Jewish journalist. When Palestinians elections vote for a movement whose attitude to Jews is informed by the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. There are always excuses, always more important things to protest about. We maybe haven’t quite reached the point where the BNP is a more comfortable place to be Jewish than the SWP, but it really does look as if things are moving that way.
And while Griffin signals a retreat from conspiracy theory politics, the left is pushing at the boundaries. A new phase in the process was marked by an article recently published in the London Review of Books. Two American academics argue that the ‘Zionist lobby’ has a stranglehold over US foreign policy which consistently harms the national interest – notably in the case of the invasion of Iraq, which is said to have been prompted by Israeli interests rather than American ones. For all the authors’ disclaimers, it is essentially a conspiracy theory – and a right-wing conspiracy theory at that. Since when has ‘national interest’ – the American national interest, for heaven's sake – been a rallying cry for the left? Why shouldn’t American Jews be concerned about Jews in the rest of the world? Compare the case of Irish Americans: some may be abysmally ignorant about Irish politics, but objections in principle to their taking an active interest in the Northern Ireland question have typically come from the right, not the left. And can we not think of any reasons why international solidarity might be a particularly pressing concern for Jews?
Here’s a sample of the way a conspiracy theory builds its case:-
‘Israel’s advocates, when pressed to go beyond mere assertion, claim that there is a ‘new anti-semitism’, which they equate with criticism of Israel. In other words, criticise Israeli policy and you are by definition an anti-semite. When the synod of the Church of England recently voted to divest from Caterpillar Inc on the grounds that it manufactures the bulldozers used by the Israelis to demolish Palestinian homes, the Chief Rabbi complained that this would ‘have the most adverse repercussions on . . . Jewish-Christian relations in Britain’, while Rabbi Tony Bayfield, the head of the Reform movement, said: ‘There is a clear problem of anti-Zionist – verging on anti-semitic – attitudes emerging in the grass-roots, and even in the middle ranks of the Church.’ But the Church was guilty merely of protesting against Israeli government policy.’
This paragraph is a masterpiece of misrepresentation. People who raise specific objections to specific criticisms of Israel become part of a conspiracy to close down all criticism of Israel, even if they are respected spiritual leaders. The fact that the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, strongly endorsed the Rabbis’ concerns is not worthy of a mention. This is meant to be a Jewish conspiracy, you see. And we are apparently being invited (or why else is this British excursus included in the article?) to conclude that The Lobby has Britain as well as America in its grip, making criticism of Israel a difficult and dangerous business, even though the passing of the synod resolution with a hefty majority suggests precisely the opposite.
And another sample:-
'Pro-Israel forces have long been interested in getting the US military more directly involved in the Middle East. But they had limited success during the Cold War, because America acted as an ‘off-shore balancer’ in the region.'
Limited success - so actually, The Lobby doesn't have such a stranglehold over US policy that it can get its way without finding other people who agree with it. But naturally that kind of detail can never be allowed to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.Another revealing point is that The Lobby is said to be essentially no different from purely commercial interest groups – which fits in very nicely with traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes.
So it’s reactionary crap – so much so that it gets a rave review from ex-Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. But no matter: it holds out the promise – evidently an irresistibly seductive one for the LRB - that, if only this thesis can gain a foothold in Washington, it can succeed where other arguments have failed in undermining American support for Israel. The end justifies the means.
For more on the Mearsheimer and Walt article, see the letters page in the subsequent issue of the LRB, sundry posts at Engage, and David Aaronovitch’s Times blog
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